pronoun agreement: gender

Personal pronouns must agree in gender with the nouns they refer to (called their “antecedents”). In English, there are three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.

Agreement in gender is not an issue with third person plural pronouns, since the plural pronoun “they” and its forms (“them,” “their”) are gender-inclusive; they automatically agree with antecedents of any gender.

But the traditional singular pronouns “he,” “she” and “it” are gender-specific, so in using these pronouns or any of their forms, we must be careful to choose the pronoun that matches the gender of its antecedent:

• Ivor dragged himself over the rocks, scraping his knees. [masculine]
• I saw Nicole. She was taking her dog for a walk. [feminine]
• The dog pricked up its ears when it heard the voices. [neuter]

Because these traditional singular pronouns are gender-specific, many non-binary and gender diverse persons use a gender-inclusive pronoun instead, such as singular “they” or one of the neopronouns:

• Alexa submitted their manuscript to a publisher, and they received a letter of acceptance.
• Brooke invited me over to zir new apartment; ze just moved in last week.

Agreement with gender-inclusive words

Indefinite pronouns (“everyone,” “anyone,” etc.) and many nouns (“member,” “student,” “performer,” “child,” “person,” etc.) are gender-inclusive: they can refer to any individual, regardless of gender.

When you are using a pronoun to refer to one of these singular gender-inclusive words, a problem arises, because English has no third person singular pronoun that is gender-inclusive:

• No witness could recall everything he had seen.
• Everyone has submitted her forms.

In these examples, the use of the gender-specific pronouns “he” and “her” excludes other genders. There are several techniques for replacing a gendered pronoun in sentences like those above. Three of the most popular ones are shown below.

Solution 1: Make your antecedent plural, and use “they”

• No witnesses could recall everything they had seen.
• All the members have submitted their forms.

Solution 2: Leave the antecedent singular, and use singular “they”:

• No witness could recall everything they had seen.
• Everyone has submitted their form.

Solution 3: Reword the sentence to get rid of the pronoun

• No witness could recall the incident completely.
• Everyone has submitted the necessary forms.

Note: In speech and informal writing, the plural pronoun “they” and its forms are often used with a singular antecedent, as shown above in Solution 2. At one time, this practice was discouraged in formal writing, but it has now been endorsed by publishers of major style guides (for example, the Modern Languages Association and the American Psychological Association).